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Comment by rnk | Hacker News Reader

No one can be exposed (or reminded) about how the country's top police force, the FBI, worked to completely destroy civil rights figures (MLK was against violence, actually made a big difference in the success of our country, and then was murdered in such a careless manner) - but: no one should be able to learn about these kinds of actions and then say we don't have a long history of endemic racism. Yet here we are today, with many people convinced that the real problem in America is we talk about our racist history too much and it hurts the feelings of white people.

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What's your point and why is that surprising? This is what they do. MLK wouldn't have much to do if there was no injustice to fight. He was fighting laws which by definition are meaningless without enforcement (FBI) and be was not trying to change things from within the system (because he can't really).

But then he won and the country changes, democrats are no longer racist people and southerners (at least not any democrat majority) and along with that many laws changed so now you can expect the FBI of today to support and protect MLK.

But if you find injustice in the laws of today, get noticed enough and they will be on you like a fat kid on cake. Excerpt now, they are more sophisticated and tech has made their job both harder and easier in scary ways.

It is a function of law enforcement to especially enforce unjust laws and orders be because those are the ones that need the most enforcement.

I don’t think it’s useful to look at the FBI through a racial lens. It has consistently murdered and oppressed people of all races and creeds from its very beginning. It’s not even altogether clear the FBI was founded legally.

We’re talking about an organization that spied on FDRs political enemies for solely political reasons and then leaked the results of those investigations to discredit his opponents. The same FBI that conducted mass wiretappings, break-ins, extortions, blackmail, murder, and, lots not forget the tried and true tactic of “infiltrating” groups, plying them with goodies and arms and then persuading them to go commit violence, then arresting them.

They’ve done this to anti-war activists, communists, right-wing extremists, Muslims, libertarians, white supremacists, weirdo cultists, and racial equality activists. And normal people who got in their way, or who were just plain unfortunate. And they almost always get away with it.

And they haven’t stopped, either.

If the FBI can be said to have a “ideology”, it’s not white supremacy. It’s the defense of the managerial elite and their status quo, and utter conviction in their rightness to do whatever it takes. And they are just about as beyond effective political control as the CIA.

When you say “our” and you mean “their” or “my” this is subject to intentional misdirection. We don’t drive our car to work at the FBI or blackmail MLK. If you do, you should stop.

And I'm sure the good liberals who like to dwell on such history are deeply concerned about the contemporary issue of how the FBI has infiltrated our social networks, and is actively involved in a disinformation campaign against Americans?

Of course not. Because this time, the FBI is working for them, or so they believe.

You see, the critics you describe are aware of the history. We're also aware that you all are complete hypocrites, only interested in gaining political advantage and making disparaging comments about white people. That's why you focus on 1950 instead of 2022.

Extending your comparison, do you believe the conservative activists and organizers of the 50s and 60s knew of the FBI’s campaign against MLK and others, but were perfectly okay because it served their political interests? Because it seems that you are saying liberal activists and organizers of today are co-signing the FBI’s psychops for political gain. If true that seems fringe, not mainstream but I could be wrong.

Also from a political organizing perspective, it’s advantageous for anyone critical of the FBI to talk about their actions of the past, as a way to bring more attention to what they are doing today. A partisan argument does the exact opposite.

Back in those days, I assume the population had no clue. But the conservative establishment in government certainly did. I was a Democrat in the 80's, 90's, and 00's. I'd like to think that I would have been one in the 50's given all that was going on.

Today, of course, I'm a committed independent because of the unfortunate path the Dems have taken.

> Because it seems that you are saying liberal activists and organizers of today are co-signing the FBI’s psychops for political gain. If true that seems fringe, not mainstream but I could be wrong.

Most of what I've seen from the political left since the Twitter files and the removal of Trump from Twitter has been justification for censorship and heavy handed actions from federal agencies. Doesn't seem fringe at all. The principled position of civil liberties, free speech, etc, is all but extinct among mainstream Democrats.

As for your last point, I agree. But that's very much not the argument GP was making.

That’s fair. I guess I would think of Twitter echo chambers —full of bots & coordinated algorithm manipulators— as fringe in comparison to what most liberal-minded people I know care about. The predictable response online isn’t as prevalent in-person in my experiences. But to each their own.

Twitter shapes the national conversation. I'm talking about verified accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers, not bots.

You mean the same FBI that routinely finds american police forces full of openly white supremacist people and cops part of those weird fringe alt-right groups like the 3% or whoever, and has done NOTHING about it for decades? Yeah they are definitely in the pocket of liberals.

I agree. They're useless. Abolish them.

Part of my point was they are not in the pocket of liberals. Liberals just think they are, and are now their unwitting stooges.

Only the far-left fringe still has the correct opinion about the FBI. Too bad they're wrong about everything else.

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